brown bess, civilian use?

[tenngun]

If such a thing happened I would not be surprised. From a practical point of view I would tend to doubt it. BB barrels I have seen tended to be thin, I don't know if their would be much meat left after groves cut. Another problem is the complaint back then about 'kings muskets' being illy boared.
Cutting off a barrel, taking some weight off the stock, adding sight makes some sence. As for making a rifle out of a bess, I would tend to think a bess might be scavenged for parts. A Gunsmith who could rifle a barrel could easily strip a bess and turn that metal in to a nice brass mounted rifle gun.
Lots of African and Indian guns were made with bess parts but I don't recall any American rifle gun with a bess lock. however, how many brass thimbles, side plates,butt plates ect started out as bess castings?

 

[nkbj]

Yeah, I was thinking about wall thickness. My rifled .69 caliber musket is really thin at the muzzle. But, it's rifled. If someone took a bess and made it into a reasonably proportioned hunting barrel length and rifled it for round ball the grooves would not need to be very deep at all and then the wall thickness would be greater at the muzzle due to taper. Makes me think of the .70 plus caliber buffalo gun that was posted on the forum here months ago.

 

[Toomuch51]

I would assume that the brown bess would have found its way into the hands of civilians and used for hunting and defence in the early 1800s.
I am wondering what modifications would have been done to it?
cut shorter?

Being British colonies Bess muskets found their way into civilian hands quite frequently, principally to arm the militia and indian allies during the French & Indian wars.
During and after the revolution numbers of these muskets (captured on the battlefield or raids on English armories) were used to arm colonial troops as well as militia voluntiers.
Many of these were shortened (possibily due to damage) known as "committee of safety" muskets.
Many of these have seen service well into the 1800s.

Toomuch
............
Shoot Flint

 

[Rod Lassey]

What about older Bess Muskets in Canada? I would love to have more documentation on them. I do know that most every really Early Brown Bess that has come to light at gun shows in America in the last 50 years seem to have mostly come down from Canada. Gus

Isaac Cowie, in his book "Company of Adventurers", detailing his years as an HBC clerk and Chief trader, noted the use of old Brown Besses at HBC posts in the mid-1800s. The use of older military muskets at fur trade posts for defence extended to the US, as well, with their mention by clerk Charles Larpenteur at Fort Union. Archaeological evidence at Ft. Union determined those muskets to be US M1816's.

Rod

 

[Artificer]

LD,

A couple years ago on another forum, I took the time to go through the indexes in Bailey's Book as to when the British Units who fought at Breed's Hill got rearmed and with what muskets. I believe it was 3 or 4 of the British Regiments who were rearmed with SLP's before coming to America and fighting at Breed's Hill.

Likewise, I found documentation of the Marines having been issued new Marine Pattern Muskets from the Portsmouth Ordnance Board.

During that discussion, members of I believe at least two if not three British reenactment units chimed in on their original units. They had found evidence and warrants of SLP's being issued that were not in Bailey's Book. They had the actual dates issued and from where they were issued (either normally the Tower or Dublin Castle). Sadly though I copied that information, it was lost when my computer crashed.

Now of course the Grenadier Companies were still armed with full length LLP's for the British Units that fought at Breed's Hill. (I believe in Bailey's Book it mentions some were still being used by Grenadier Companies in the 1790's).

Were the SLP's issued to the British Army Units who fought at Breed's Hill new or cut down LLP's? It is possible some were cut down LLP's as long as they were P1756 or later patterns with Iron/Steel Rammers and flatter bottomed locks, as it is pretty well documented most muskets in the hands of Regular British Units were specifically issued Iron/Steel Rammer Muskets before coming here. (Some P1756 LLP muskets had been new made with wooden rammers, though that practice stopped by the early 1760’s for the most part.)

When I have recovered more from recent eye surgery, I will go back to Bailey’s and root out the British Units I wrote about, though I cannot document what other reenactment units found that I had not found.

Gus

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Yes it's tough based on the wording in some cases. The British were indeed all armed with at least the final version aka 1756 LLP's. Again though, the 1769 bess isn't what is offered from the Italians.

Toomuch wrote:
Being British colonies Bess muskets found their way into civilian hands quite frequently, principally to arm the militia and indian allies during the French & Indian wars.
During and after the revolution numbers of these muskets (captured on the battlefield or raids on English armories) were used to arm colonial troops as well as militia voluntiers.
Many of these were shortened (possibily due to damage) known as "committee of safety" muskets.

Well a couple of things... most if not all of the King's muskets used in the F&I by provincial forces were returned to the colonial governments at the end of the war. As for the AWI... very few British muskets were captured only about 7000 at Saratoga, otherwise, there were less than 1000 German muskets at Trenton, and less than 500 at Princeton...considering that Washington alone at the Second Battle of Saratoga had 15,000 men in his army of regular troops... that's not many besses to spread around among 13 colonies and militias....

Committee of Safety muskets were manufactured by the states... they were often cobbled together from parts harvested from damaged or worn out bess, but 1) if the bess was servicable it was not reworked by the Committees of Safety, it was used as is and 2) Committee of Safety muskets were not made short nor shortened during the AWI... the idea was to win battles against the British, and to do that you need bayonets, and to use the bayonet you need a musket very close to the length of the British musket of the time.

goodcheer wrote:
..., and the bore cut rifled by some enterprising soul. But, while I'm sure someone somewhere did such modification...

I'm not... the wall thickness on a Bess is very very thin in the originals... not only would you be making them even thinner by rifling... you'd be boosting the pressure at firing by the tightly fitted patched ball... for if you want shallow rifling to work, that ball has to be tight. They may have tried it... they probably burst the barrel.

LD

 

[Va.Manuf.06]

WOW, that is superb documentation!! I was truly impressed by the fact that Muskets were designated as U.S., Virginia Manufactory of Arms, and especially the 900 muskets noted as "English Muskets." It is a shame they did not delineate what the "Altered Muskets" and generic "Flint Muskets" were, but that was not important to them at the time.

Gus

Glad you found it useful Gus. It takes a while to go through it all but it is good, period documentation of the arms issued by Virginia in the opening days of the Civil War.

 

[mwilson]

Very well said